4. Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel
Published in 1994, Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir of severe depression before, during and after attending Harvard managed to reach a lot of disaffected young people and capture the Zeitgeist of the early 1990s. In the book she writes about her tortuous family relationships, her continually failing relationships, her descent into self medication via drink and drugs, and the constant rock bottoms she hits, despite being an acclaimed and respected journalist. Finally relief arrives courtesy of a little pill called Prozac. Whenever I first read Prozac Nation, I was 18 years old, undergoing a bout of severe depression and alienation from my peers. I absolutely loved Prozac Nation - whole passages felt like Wurtzel knew exactly what I was going through. I idolised the book. 17 years on, I am no longer depressed and looking at the book, Wurtzel seems a bit whiny and self indulgent. However, depression makes people very self centred because all they can focus on is the doom and gloom brewing inside their heads. Everything else is insignificant. So Wurtzel is just being Wurtzel. Yes it is a bit of a psychological freak show, but to give Wurtzel her dues, she does paint throughout the book, a pretty convincing portrait of depression and how debilitating it can be. I would have liked more of a debate about pill popping consumerism in America, and the title is misleading because she only gets prescribed Prozac in the final pages. Everything before that is a litany of woe.